hotShot

I agree that it was not that much of a show, but it was very good match. Modern football is about team tactics, and this was a perfect display of them. Both teams demostrated almost perfect zone defence, the forwards acted as the first line of defence, the player with the ball is immediatelly attacked by 2 players. This is why the average distance a player moves in game has gone up from 4km to 10km during the last 50 years. Under pressure a team can't develope it's play and forced mistakes will occure. Top teams create goals situations from these individual mistakes. The fewer mistakes happen, the less goal scenes will happen. The only other way to goal situations are "standard situations" like corners or free kicks.

They are not happy with this, but it is more sport that throwing a coin. They tried the suddden death a while, but nobody really liked that too.

This hand strong enough to reverse, so i would have opend 1♦. Now I have to bid 2♦. 3♦ shows another type of hand.

Don't waste your energy on sacrifices, they will come automaticly once you can evaluate your sides best contract. If you want to sacrifice in a minor over 4M you need to be sure you can make 3m. If you want to sacrifice against a slam, 2(something) should make. You should have an agreement about your preempts, and how many tricks are needed from partner to make. A rock solid stoneage agreement would be 2(3) tricks. Sort of a modern agreement would be LOTT, but it is not so accurate at the 5 level.

OK lets assume I hold: xxxx,Ax,AKxx,ABx Obviously I have a bidding problem, but does it get any better? If our agreement is, that this is a second seat pass, our 4th seat partner will have to reopen more often, resulting in weaker reopening dbl's and a wider rage of possible shapes. So partner can now have 12,11,10,.... HCP for his reopening dbl. So after partners reopening dbl, to what game do you want to force? Without a ♠ stop NT is out. If partner had 6♥, he would have bid them. So all you can hope for is partners 5card ♣ or 4card ♦. Since responders pass contains no information about a possible ♠ fit it is possible that partner has 2♠, 4♥, 3♦ and 4♣ and you don't have a fit at all.

SIMON AND GARFUNKEL - HAZY SHADE OF WINTER and i think the Bangles version is better.

Yes it makes a difference that it's MP, because your loss is limited (unlike at IMP's). I would pass. If your partner had only 2♣ opps would have a 9 card fit in ♣. So they should be unable to make a t/o dbl. Getting 5(non vul.) or 6 (vul.) tricks is good enough to win against their partscore. This should be an easy job, since partner will have top tricks in ♣ or in the side suits. You know that partner must be 4432 for that and your side can only have a 8 card fit in ♥, and if partner has more than 2♣ your side might not have a fit at all. Put the pressure on your LHO, and let him find a bid. If he finds something else your partner will be of the hook or he can make another bid to show his strength. Since you can pass every rebid of your partner with at least 7 card fit, you have no problem at all.

2♠ is forcing, but it comes from a passed hand. So i disagree that it is game forcing or even self forcing. 2♠ shows tolerance to play any suit you bid, which would mean your partner is short in ♠, if he were strong enough to force to game, he could have made a t/o dbl last round. If he's strong enough to force to game, only a significant ♠ length could have kept him from bidding last round. But with that he could have passed 1♠x (which should be better than any partscore you can make) or bid NT because he stopps the ♠. Since your dbl should show shortage in ♠, it is even unlikely that partner is trying to expose a psyche wishing to play in that suit.

1♦ - 1♥ 2♥ - 4NT 4NT is an overbid, you have only 14 HCP because Jx in ♠ does not count. To go for a slam your side needs about 30+ HCP and your partner did not promise to have 15+ HCP. In fact he showed a minimum hand. He raised your 1♥ bid, because you are unlimited and he is limiting his strength at the lover end of the opening range. This is not an openers reverse, it's just a simple raise because you are unlimited yet. As to the play, you should get: 1♣, 1♠, 3♥, 3♦ and a♠ ruff and a ♣ ruff => 10 tricks (if the ♥ are 3-2, if they are 4-1 you have some timing problems to solve, ruff a club and loose the ♦Q prior to drawing the last trump). So one should not go down in 4♥.

Only 8 left and we are almost back to the usual suspects. Argentina Brasil England France Germany Italy Portugal Ukraine But my impression is that most of them had a hard time getting there.

Can anybody tell me what the difference is between russian scoring and Mono-IMPs?

I suggest the auction: 2♣ - 2♥ (♥ and not minimum) 2NT* - 3♦ or 3♥ 3NT * 22-23 HCP, (semi) balanced waiting for more information about partners hand. After partbner ♥ bid, you are no longer interested in a suit contract, and partner obviously has wasted ♥ values. A stronger partner can make a slam try over 3NT.

For the referee this "penatly" situation was a no win scenario. The australian player slides into the way of the italian (not playing the ball) and the italian player could not avoid (and did not even try to avoid) falling over him. It does not matter which decision he made, it would have been disputed any way.

Not to mention that 0.032258..... means 3.2258%.

1) your looser are ♦ Qxx =>2.5 - 3 (QJT is 2 looser) ♠ 1 => 1 ♣ 76 =>2 ♥ KDJ.... =>1 6.5 to 7 looser 2) If you change the ♥2 into the ace, you have 6 looser and 4♠x still makes. 4♥ is a one suited preempt, it should be stronger than 3♥ but it's still a preempt. So the south hand is to weak to dbl.

Well there is a problem with facts, without a context they say nothing. 100 mg Cyanid is enough to kill a 100kg man, this is 1 part per million. "A minor constituent" to the mans body, as one could say, but it is fatal. Nature is about balance, und you don't need much to end balanced situation. Vulcanos and biological activity have been arround all the time and the system could handle them. So it does not matter how much C02 vulcanos and other natural sources produce, unless you can call superman to cool them down. All we can influence is the manmande part and it is big enough to make a balanced system fall over. If you don't trust scientists ask the big insurace companies, about the costs they have because of storms and floods. Global warning does not mean, that everything stays like it is, just a little warmer. Global warming means more energy in the atmoshpere resulting in stronger storms. And the global warming will not just raise the average, there will be hot spots like the caribian sea. A few years from now you won't get any insurance for house that is even close to the cost.

The amont of manmade carbon dioxide emission is very easy to determine. You just need the sum up the amout of oil and coal that were sold in a give amount of time. It is easy to to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Now if you compare measurments that are long enough apart, you know about the chance and how much of this is manmade. Some interest groups try to create the impression that the groups of scientists that disagree about whats happening are of about the same size. While in fact the distribution is more like 95% to 5%. The fact that I find most curious is, that reducing the carbon dioxide emission is in your best interest even if you don't believe that it causes global warming. Anybody who had a look on his latest electricity bill or refuelled his car should realise that reducing the energy consumption will save money. We all know that oil is a limited resource, and that prices will go up even further.

It sounds like both BBO and VPN are using the same port to communicate. If BBO would stop working after you started VPN, it would be a routing problem. (Or BBO tries to access the Internet using the VPN and your company's firewall is blocking the BBO request.)

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report states human activity is responsible for a large amount of the global warming. Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years

North has to find a way to tell about his ♠ at MP's (well also at IMP's). These has to be a systemic whay to show a "strong" hand with a 6M suit. 1♣ - 1♠ 2♣ - 3♠ Might be a way to start in your system.

Your LHO will bid something (or your side is allowed to play 1♥X), with the result that you will have another chance to bid. You can bid 2♥ then. This way your partner knows that you are weak even for the low expectation he has. So no way that opps will play on 1 level, even when you pass now.

This is a matter where information about other available bids are required. Usually bidding a new suit implies that there is no fit in partners suit (if you don't have agreed otherwise). So i think it is a good rule to have at least as many cards in the suit you bid, as your partner promissed in his suit. You should be shorter in partners suit, than the average you can expect him to have in your suit.

A new suit from an unlimited hand, should be forcing in almost any system. It would be more difficult if north were a passed hand and therefor limited.

Obviously this was an offline bridge problem, why else would north ask east about wests bidding. First off all i would ask north what he planed to bid when he asked about the 5♣ bid. If he did not intend to bid, i will inform him that the appropriate action is to ask when the bidding is finished, because he is creating UI for his partner that might lead to lead restrictions or even a corrected score. Additionally he helps opps to avoid bidding missunderstandings (if not working with screens). No keycards with 5♠ and 4♥ means 4 minor cards. The only HCP worth nonkeycards are ♣KJ, ♦Q,♠QJ and ♥QJ. With that holding 6♥ is made if north has the ♥K, 50% is a reasonable slam. But 5♥ is a LA.

West North East South Pass 1♣ Pass 1♥ 1♠ 4♦* Pass 4♠** Dbl 5♣+ Pass 6♥ Pass Pass Pass *Splinter, GF + mild slam interest, ♥ support 4+cards(since partner showed only 4 yet.) **First round control ♠, you know he's void +serious slam interest, ♣ first round control Now south sees that there is only 1♦ looser (your single), no ♠ looser (his void), no ♣ looser (your ace opposite his single). Since he has 6♥ and knows about your 10 card fit, he is quite save to bid 6♥.